


Arachnida

by ivymyst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Peter Parker, Dark Tony Stark, Gen, Kinda, Mirror Universe, Peter Parker Has Issues, Precious Peter Parker, Spider-Verse, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, We aren't getting into Infinity War right now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-14 01:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18042842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivymyst/pseuds/ivymyst
Summary: “Dude! Why are you trying to kill me if I’m you?”“You are not me. If you were me, you wouldn’t be so easy to take down.”-A somewhat Spider-Verse style take on a slightly Dark Mirror-Verse MCU Peter Parker where he meets a goofier, happier version of himself in a different timeline. And why can't this Peter understand that Mr. Stark isn't really his friend? Or maybe things really are that different...





	1. Chapter 1

Peter never really asked for any of this, at least when he really thought about it.  
  
He never asked for powers; the super strength, the healing, the ability to scale walls. He didn’t ask for any of it, but he accepted it.  
  
He accepted all of it, because for as long as he could remember he’d known that he wasn’t meant for normalcy or even long-term happiness. He’d forgotten that fact, lost in the haze of childhood when you're too young to know better, when you think there's still so much room for hope even after a tragedy you couldn't remember but somehow still felt deep inside you, but then he remembered again when he got the Spider bite. He remembered when Uncle Ben died that day leaving his Aunt to become a shell of what she once was, and he remembered when Tony Stark came back different. Life had knocked Mr. Stark down, taking away almost everything, and Peter understood it, understood why it had happened that way.  
  
Because of course it would happen that way. Of course.  
  
And Peter had understood what it all meant, why Tony needed him to be more, to be better. Stronger. He had something that Mr. Stark didn’t have anymore, a working body, and that made him an asset to Mr. Stark; a tool. What else had there really been for Peter? It certainly wasn't the normal life he had before where homework was the only thing he worried about, or getting mocked or having his ass kicked by Flash, or even when he'd get to hang out with his friends. None of it mattered, but at least he was needed, or so he told himself.  
  
_But Aunt May had needed you, too,_ his mind unhelpfully supplied.  
  
_Don't think about that.  
  
Let it go, let it go, let it go..._  
_  
"Peter, are you paying attention?"_ Mr. Stark's voice clipped in, taking Peter out of the reverie he'd been in.  
  
"Yeah, I'm in. I'm going to take them out now," Peter responded, not bothering to try and explain himself.  
  
_"Don't let any of them escape alive. We've got one shot at this right now and if you blow it—"  
  
_"I'm not going to blow it," Peter countered, his words coming out a little more sharp than he'd intended, but it had the right effect and he didn't hear anything else from Mr. Stark after that as he crawled in through the open window, skulking in the shadows on an upper level to watch the guards on station below.  
  
He gulped and clenched his fists as he crouched, assessing each of the visible targets, letting the A.I. in his suit also register the few distant heat signatures behind the walls. He would get to them later.  
  
_"Be careful when you get to it,"_ Mr. Stark's voice came in again. _"We don't know how strong this power source is, this could level the whole damn forest if handled incorrectly."_ _  
  
_"Got it."  
  
_"Don't disappoint me, Peter."  
  
_The corners of Peter's mouth curled up and he was glad Mr. Stark couldn't see the bitter smile he had. That's what it always came down to.  
  
Taking out the guards had almost been a little too easy, which was why he wasn't that surprised when in the middle of snapping one guard's arm, splintering the bone in his grip as the woman's shrill screams filled the quiet of the warehouse, that a much bigger threat appeared. Peter finished her off while watching the freakish beast of a man approach him, obviously mutated and pumped up with all sorts of jacked up enhancements. He was pretty _orange_ for one thing, and the man growled at Peter who quickly noted that he was really quite huge compared to him, standing at least the height of two of himself while his bloated and almost painful looking muscles pulsed with bright orange energy beneath his mottled and disfigured skin.  
  
"Hey, big fella," Peter said. "You look like something the Hulk coughed up after a pretty bad bender."  
  
He knew better than to verbally engage, at least not when this mission depended on so much, not when Mr. Stark was waiting for him back at the compound. But he could still have a little fun now and again, couldn't he?  
  
_"Peter, this is a waste of time. Take him out and move on._ "  
  
Peter ignored Mr. Stark's order. Why couldn't he just have this? It'd been so long since he had a good fight, at least the kind he enjoyed.  
  
He shot a line of webbing at the ceiling above and was in the air the moment the big orange behemoth shouted his way and charged-- only to almost run straight into a cement wall before growling and looking up to the ceiling where Peter waited high above him.

_"Peter, I said move on!"_

Maybe for once in his life he wanted to do something else besides obey orders, and so Peter jumped down, initiating the venomous injectors covered in sharp blades that unsheathed from his arms as he landed on his opponent's shoulders, driving them straight through his neck and releasing the toxic poison into the man's obviously already-mutated bloodstream.

 _"Goddamnit,"_ he heard Mr. Stark say over the mic. _"We don't have time for this."_  
  
Rage filled howls echoed in the warehouse as big lumbering arms were thrown up to try and grasp Peter just as he released his hold and flipped back, slipping out of whatever clumsy grip he’d tried to keep him in as the poison did its work.  
  
“Yeah, you feel that? That is gonna go right down to the nerve, buddy,” he managed before sliding effortlessly to the side as the angry beefed-up tangerine attempted to barrel towards him again. He was even slower now and dumber if that was possible, but he wasn’t stopping.  
  
_“Yeah, uh, kid, he’s not going to go down so easy and we’re not exactly made of time here. Get out of there now.”_  
  
Peter sighed. He'd wanted to play a little more and he was tired of Mr. Stark underestimating him.  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
Through the speaker he heard the distinct noise of frustration, which Peter ignored as he finally decided to web up the orange monstrosity’s ankles, it was the easy part, and while his venom typically incapacitated his victims before they suffocated, it seemed that mixed with the mutant’s physiology it had begun to do a little more than suck the oxygen out of his body. Peter grimaced a little with disgust as he saw the once orange glowing veins begin to turn a sickly green and then blacken while the man clawed desperately at his neck and attempted to kill himself with his own bare hands by digging his massive fingers into his own flesh and arteries.  
  
Peter left him the way he was, following the path to a door that he ripped through and into a long hallway which was dimly lit with flickering fluorescent lights, his fists raised to strike if needed, only to be disappointed that there were only a few rather ordinary guards to try and stand in his way, all of them too slow to hit him with their gunfire.  
  
He'd guessed that they had run out of freaks.  
  
  
“Y’know, Mr. Stark, I’m starting to get the impression they don’t really know the value of what they’ve got here,” said Peter. “You’d think they would have invested in a little better security.”  
  
  
He got no reply, not that it mattered much anyway, and even the automated security system was easy to hack into, all he had to do was tap in and fry the thing from the inside which triggered another automated door to open for him that he stepped into, suddenly basked in a green glow.  
  
“Found it.”  
  
_“Remember what I told you about how to handle it. Do you remember, Peter?”_  
  
“Yeah, yeah…”  
  
It stood in the center of the empty room and it was the only source of light that filled the whole space, the bright green encompassing everything around him and if he listened very intently, he could hear a faint hum emitting from it. This thing was definitely different. Mr. Stark had first dismissed it as a cheap knock-off of the Tesseract; some concocted hack-job of polluted energy confined to a prism of very strong magic, but then intelligence had started to say something very different and that was why Mr. Stark needed it.  
  
And when Peter finally stepped closer to it, with his hand outstretched, he felt an almost magnetic pull from its glass confine. He knew not to touch it directly too much, only once and quickly at that, before dropping it in the Nano-Tech containment case that he had slapped to his thigh in the form of a small brace which would soon grow and become the power source's holder unit he got it back to the compound.  
  
The Nightbird aircraft was already waiting for him not too far from the warehouse, cloaked in the forest just where he'd left it…  
  
“Just like Tony Stark to send the "help" to do his dirty work,” a man’s voice said from behind him, his words reverberating smoothly around the empty space.  
  
“Wow, I didn’t think you’d actually be here,” replied Peter.  
  
“I tend not to let what is most precious to me out of my sight.”  
  
“But yet you hire the literal worst security team? And what was up with Cheeto brain out there?”  
  
“Yeah, I saw your work. I'm impressed. You look like something special, but that right there is still mine,” he said, stepping closer.  
  
“Listen, Hammer, it’s pretty obvious that this is a little beyond your abilities. Having something this " _precious"_ as you put it, in the hands of someone like _you_ , well, you’re really just asking to hurt yourself. Why don’t you let the experts, handle it, yeah? I mean, I admire your tenacity to continue embarrassing yourself like you do, but do you really think you won’t botch this one up, too? Know when to give up, man.”  
  
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”  
  
“To me?” Peter snorted.  
  
“You see, I don’t think you’re as appreciated as much as you deserve. I mean, just look at you, you’re so powerful, so agile, and I’d imagine still even so without that suit, which is pretty nice, by the way. A little overkill on some of the aesthetics, but who am I to judge?”  
  
“I think I’m done talking,” said Peter as he stepped away, raising his fists as the venom inside his injectors swished and the device with multiple blades holding them clicked into instant ready-mode.  
  
“Whoah! Hold on, I’m not done. I want you to work for me instead of Stark—"  
  
Peter was fast, faster than the man could blink before he had grabbed his windpipe and squeezed, lifting the man off of his own feet to struggle above him.  
  
“Why would I ever want to work for an idiot like you?” Peter said before throwing him across the room, hesitating a moment to watch the man as if he were prey before walking up to him again when he’d fallen in a heap on the floor, the man’s glasses hanging askew over his nose.  
  
_“Finish him,”_ Mr. Stark ordered a little irately. Sometimes Peter forgot how his mentor was always there, always listening.  
  
“No problem,” said Peter flatly.  
  
“H-hold on, I said hold on! I can give you something you don’t have with Stark, if you just listen to me!”  
  
“And what’s that?”  
  
“Freedom.”  
  
Peter laughed, really genuinely laughed, and it almost made his sides start hurting.  
  
“You think I’m his prisoner?”  
  
“You don’t need him,” Hammer wheezed, messaging his neck.  
  
“And you’re the last person I’d ever need,” Peter told him viciously before striking down at the man who only managed to let out a strangled yell.  
  
It was over before Hammer could utter another word and Peter walked away, something inside him buzzing and he knew he’d have to have the suit cleaned after the mission was complete.  
  
Finally engaging the containment case that erupted in his hands the moment he pressed a pad, Peter broke through the glass, marveling at how the suspended energy seemed to shrink to a glowing orb that fit perfectly in his hand. It was beautiful, he thought almost in a daze, Mr. Stark's warning about not hesitating somewhere in the back of his mind. But it was just a moment.  
  
And sometimes that's all it takes.  
  
Peter was about to place it in the slot inside the case, but the orb didn’t seem to move, didn’t seem to budge from his hand, as if it was sticking. Peter shook his hand a little in a sorry attempt to dislodge it, but no avail. It was beginning to grow warmer.  
  
“Uh, Mr. Stark…”  
  
_“What now, Peter?”_  
  
“It’s not coming off.”  
  
_“What?”_  
  
Peter gasped, dropping the case from his other hand as the energy from it soon began radiating blistering heat through his suit and into his skin and through the flesh, down into the very bones of his hand.  
  
_Shit._  
_  
I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn't..._  
  
Then Peter felt himself breaking apart, as if he was deconstructing piece by piece and those pieces were being stretched and boiled; his last awareness only briefly holding onto Mr. Stark’s static-y voice coming in scrambled and indecipherable before it faded completely, bringing both a sense of relief and almost crushing fear combined.  
  
From black to green, to white, and then finally... blue… blue like his suit; a choice to be different, to contrast from what he had once been. A contrast from the man who’d changed everything for him, the same man he had once looked up to...  
  
And then he fell, his body colliding with hard ground as the scent of trash and damp pavement filled his nostrils, but he was momentarily too stunned to wonder why he suddenly smelled that and not just fresh blood that he knew was still on him, too stunned to question why he was no longer in a room, but in an alley where the lights had just shut off as blue sparks burst around his own body before suddenly fading as he sensed the presence of someone high above him.  
  
_Hide._  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think!

“Peter! Get up, you’re going to be late!”

“I’m awake,” Peter muttered sleepily into his pillow, blindly reaching for his buzzing phone (that he'd been ignoring), momentarily relieved when Aunt May hadn’t burst in his room to yank the covers from him like she sometimes did when he overslept.

“I’m giving you five minutes and you better be out this door and in the shower or I’m throwing you in there myself, do you understand me?” Aunt May’s voice coming in through the door muffled. “I’m serious!”

“I’m up!” Peter called back loud enough for her to hear, finally managing to find a grasp on his phone and snoozing the alarm he’d set on it. He’d meant to rush out of bed and out the door but had only succeeded in tangling himself in the old lumpy comforter in the process and falling out of bed with a loud _thunk_.

“Jeez,” Peter said to himself as he hastily scrambled to get up. He hadn't done that in a while.

 _You’d think after becoming a legit superhero that waking up the morning wouldn’t be such an issue_ , he thought blearily as he made his way out of his room and to the bathroom, frowning when he caught sight of the dismal state of his hair in the mirror.

_Yep, this day is going to great._

He really hadn’t meant it for it to sound so sarcastic when he’d said it in his head.

But that’s just how the day was going, and he couldn’t say he was surprised, especially not after a night where he’d been plagued by weird dreams that kept him tossing and turning all night after patrol. Nothing had even _happened_ , and yet he struggled to think of what could have triggered his mind to become more active and haywire than it usually was while sleeping, but nonetheless he was exhausted and the more aware and awake he became, the more he realized how on edge he actually was.

“See you later, Aunt May!” Peter shouted between a bite of jam on toast (okay, it was more of a short stack of toast), as he flew out the apartment door with his heavy backpack slung over his shoulder. If she’d said anything back he didn’t have the chance to hear as he leapt over the stair railing and down a few floors since the lift had been broken that week, glad that no neighbors had come out as he parkour’d like an idiot past the multiple levels to get the main floor that was also thankfully vacant— or so he _thought_ when he heard a small shriek behind him the moment he landed on the grimy tile of the entrance like a cat.

“What are you doing!” An old woman still in her nightgown shouted at him and Peter balked before stuttering out an apology.

“Shit—I mean, shoot! S-sorry, I meant sorry. Sorry, ma’am, just late, sorry. That like, totally will not happen again.”

“You’re going to break your legs if you aren’t careful!”

“Sorry!” Peter blurted again before making a break for it out the doorway, mindful not to stumble into the path of some pedestrians walking by. He couldn’t place it, but he was still sure something was wrong and it was more than just the dreams. It had felt like his Spidey Sense, but something deeper, more gnawing and unpleasant like how he used to feel right before he was about to get the flu back when he could still get it, or so he assumed. He hadn't fully tested the parameters of his health endurance _yet_.

He was three blocks down the street when he felt it finally hit him and suddenly everything became much too loud, louder than usual, his vision starting to blur and the cars and people began morphing into a haze of lurid colors and shapes that made his stomach churn and a headache that hadn’t quite been there before suddenly burst in his temples and right between his eyes, forcing him to stop walking in the middle of the street and walk to the side until his back hit a brick wall where he tried to focus on his breathing while he shut his eyes tight.

_Not here, not now._

And just as quickly as it had come on, the disorienting sensations ebbed and he managed to open his eyes again, and though the pain in his head had also begun to recede, the ache still lingered in the foreground which was enough to make him feel unsettled about it.

Nothing around him was wrong, though, that he could tell. The normal, everyday hum of traffic, the many footsteps on the pavement on all the surrounding streets, as well as the honking, and chatter— it was all the same as it usually was. Normal. _Maybe it was a fluke_ , he thought as he went back on to his normal route to get on the subway. After all, it could just be something that happened and that didn’t always have to mean something was wrong, right?

He shut it down, all of it, filing his worried thoughts to the far back of his mind.  
  
And he forgot about it, or rather he almost did when a pair of fingers snapped in front of his face, catching his attention while in the middle of class (which he’d somehow reached on time by a miracle he hadn’t even dared to ask for).  
  
Peter turned to look at the source of the hand which had retreated when he jolted slightly in his seat.

“Are you okay?” Ned whispered next him, looking at him with a worried expression.

“Yeah, yeah, man, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been talking to you for the past ten minutes and you haven’t responded to anything I’ve said.”

Peter furrowed his brows at that when a voice suddenly had both of their attention.

“Mr. Parker, Mr. Leeds, I really hope you’re talking about the assignment I’m trying to run by you guys, not that any of you kids in this class actually cares to listen to anything I have to say,” the teacher, Mr. Platt, said irately to the both of them before rolling his eyes in evident exasperation.

“Uh, yes, sir!” Ned said hastily, turning a slight shade of red while Peter stiffened in his seat and tried to sit more upright with his palms flat on the desk.

Class continued while Peter shot an apologetic look towards his friend, hoping he’d understand, which he seemed to, judging by the short nod he gave him.

After that, the rest of the day progressed on normally and by the late afternoon he could safely say he was actually feeling better, not quite 100% but well enough to look forward to dinner with Aunt May and of course patrol later that night. It’d been a few weeks since he’d heard anything from Mr. Stark in a while, but that’d been okay. He’d been okay, and since everything had happened with the ferry, the plane and Toomes— he could safely say that he was completely okay with just staying put where he was until something big came up. The near-death experience had sobered him a bit and he felt a little less needy, especially after getting the recognition that he hadn’t failed Mr. Stark after all, and even after almost giving his Aunt a heart attack, things still seemed okay. He was okay. Everything was fine again.

He'd made it through the whole day without any more trouble when he began his patrol of the neighborhood after dinner. He'd webbed up one mugger, thwarted one drug deal between a shady dude and some kids not much older than himself and _actually_ , honest to God, saved a kitten trapped on a fire escape when its paw had caught in the metal grating.  
  
Yeah, things were going alright— up until Karen's voice erupted in his suit on the way back home, and just at the very moment he caught sight of a strange blue light flickering from an alley up ahead. Naturally he launched himself up into the air to investigate, trying not to dwell too deeply that it was definitely possible that this might be the weird thing he'd been dreading all day. 

_"Peter, there is an electromagnetic disturbance occurring on the other side of the building you are about to land on,"_ Karen told him serenely.

"On it!"  
  
_Is this it? Is this the thing that made me nervous all day?_

Peter didn't want to answer that thought and he was glad he hadn't asked Karen, knowing her she'd likely give him some level of probability that wouldn't make him feel any better. He'd find out soon enough for himself, he guessed as his feet hit the loose gravel of the rooftop, the light he'd been following suddenly fading just as he reached the edge and bent down to peer over.

The alley was dark, and Peter saw that the street lights on either side had somehow gone out, as well as the one that had been located above a dumpster. He was still able to make out shapes in the alley thanks to his heightened vision and meanwhile sensors immediately narrowed in on a form that had shifted in a dark corner behind some overturned trash cans and discarded boxes.

Everything felt very still and actually quiet, too quiet, despite the noise of the city that he managed to keep to the foreground of his attention. 

Peter retreated slightly, edging along the rooftop carefully as he watched the dark alleyway, waiting for something to happen.

"Karen," Peter whispered inside his mask, breath hot on the inside that made his upper lip moist. It was still relatively cool out, but he realized he was sweating anyway, and it was likely a little more than just the temperature. He was the one doing the watching, but he knew he wasn't alone; there was something or someone below who had to be biding their time.

_"Yes, Peter."_

"You, uh, picking up any life signs down there?"

_"There seems to be some sort of dampener making it difficult to make that assessment. I can, however, tell you that there are twenty-three heat signatures active inside the opposite building."_

"Alright, thanks, Karen."

The headache from earlier seemed to wriggle itself into being once more and Peter grit his teeth, doing his best not to be affected by it.

"Okay, here goes nothing."

It might have been the stupid choice to make, but Peter did it anyway.

Crawling over the edge and on to the side of the building he'd been on, Peter crept alongside it with both of his hands and feet gripping the old, worn brick wall, inching his way down carefully and slowly while scanning the entire area of the alley that he could make out, while Karen still attempted to focus and track any sort of active abnormality or otherwise, even charting the presence of a passing rat that was quickly dismissed on his motion sensor. He'd made it about a few feet from the ground when he dropped, huffing a little with impatience as he did.

He stood there watching, listening in the darkness, waiting for something that he knew was there. Or was he just losing his touch? His senses had been off earlier, maybe that's what it was, but he hadn't imagined the flashing blue light, nor had he forgotten that Karen had sensed something as well. So, he wasn't crazy.

"Anybody there?" Peter spoke out into the empty alley, feeling dumb the moment he spoke.

Then he felt it, his senses prickling slowly at first before they whooshed into overdrive, making him leap up high into the air as something plowed towards him, just barely missing him. The streetlights flicked on at that moment as he turned to face whoever, or whatever it was, and his hackles were raised as he poised for an onslaught of attacks, ready to defend himself and strike back if need be. Except it wasn't anything close to what he expected, if he even knew what he'd been expecting and that had been his mistake— he hesitated for a second too long before a fist shot in his direction, connecting with his chin, knocking his teeth harshly and throwing his head back. A metallic taste filled his mouth and he would have fallen back, but Peter managed to steady himself and duck before another fist could collide with his face again. Peter kicked back squarely in the figure's chest, but they were too fast for him.

Their suit, Peter began to register everything at once. It was just like the suit Mr. Stark had showed him in the Avengers compound, the one he turned down, except for one glaring minor difference. The color was different. Instead of a metallic red, similar to that of Iron Man's suit, it was a blazing metallic sapphire with black web designs crossing its arm plating and a reversed spider emblem with the head bent down and the legs curved with jagged edges on the chest.

Was this a copycat? Had he made it big enough to finally have someone hijack his look? But this wasn't a cheap onesie.  
  
Peter, much to his embarrassment, let out a yelp as the other Spider managed to hit him again, this time knocking the wind out of him while still on his feet.

"Who are you? Why— why are you wearing that suit?" Peter managed breathlessly as he stared up at the other Spider that now stood across from him, watching him from behind a different color mask that was too much like his own. The other Spider was almost the same height as him, he noted, but perhaps an inch or two taller.  

"You don't fool me," the other Spider said, his voice sounding a little suspiciously too similar for his comfort.

"It's not cool to steal someone's look, you're lucky I don't have a copyright on all of this yet— unless Mr. Stark got one already, I'm not really sure if Superheroes have copyrights or not actually—"

"Did you say Mr. Stark? As in _Tony Stark_?"

 _Maybe I should call Mr. Stark_ , Peter thought quickly, now suddenly in a panic.

"Why, d'you know him… or something? I mean, he might not be too pleased about you stealing his tech, if this is what this is..."

Then the face mask fell away just as it had begun sprinkling overhead, a crack of thunder resounding in the distance and Peter stared... at himself.  
  
"What the f—"


	3. Chapter 3

Peter had let go of some semblance of normal some time back, especially after the whole Chitauri business that had shaken all of New York and practically the country along with it when he'd just been a kid. Then there was this whole getting powers thing, and then Iron Man showing up in his apartment and sitting on his couch…  
  
Yeah, normal was definitely something different for him, he’d decided, and he also had made up his mind that the term would have to mean something else.  
  
But this.  
  
This was pushing things a little.  
  
He couldn’t even say anything.  
  
“Um,” Peter began uncertainly while licking his lips before speaking again, “Why do you… look like that?”  
  
“What? You don’t know who I am?”  
  
“I dunno, do I? Should I? This is getting kind of weird.”  
  
“I’m Peter Parker,” he told him flatly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
“No… no, you’re not.”  
  
The other “Peter” smirked at him darkly and he couldn’t help but cringe at the sight, something chilling up his spine at the way his clone, or whatever he was, stared at him.  
  
“And who are you exactly? Did you bring me here?”  
  
_“Peter, would you like me to contact Mr. Stark?”_ Karen asked him.  
  
“Uh…”  
  
Before he could think to respond with anything else the other Spider-Man raised his arms, engaging a set of strange looking projectors from his forearms that were sharp and whirling with some kind of fluid inside of them.  
  
“Nope!”  
  
Peter had seen enough and shot a series of web shooters at the other Spider-Man, once again falling into an attack stance, but he watched him dodge and then reverse attack with what seemed like his own webbing back at him. Peter managed to mirror his opponent’s prior movements by missing them, too.  
  
The other “Peter” was grinning wildly after the rapid exchange before moving to strike out with his forearms, aiming to pierce Peter’s chest who managed to grab his arms to counter, able to match his strength— or so he thought, his eyes widening behind his mask as he pushed back with more force, making his feet slide back on the damp pavement, too caught up in the moment to realize that the slight drizzle had turned into a small downpour.  
  
Water dripped down the other young man’s face who hadn’t seemed to have lost the maniacal look yet (that just seemed so wrong on what was supposed to be _his_ face).  
  
“What. Is. _Your_. Problem?” Peter gritted out, his teeth grinding as he tried to move against him, squeezing tightly and feeling nervous when the contraptions didn’t seem to bend or give way to his hold.  
  
The other Spider-Man’s mask activated again, Nano particles rising up over his face and Peter felt some relief that he didn’t need to look into his own face anymore. It was too wrong.  
  
But the bladed tips with swishing caustic fluid were coming down closer and closer and Peter shouted in frustration, violently jerking his hold away from him so that he could duck and try and trip him, but he was too fast after releasing his hold and an elbow knocked into his side while another foot tripped him up and Peter fell, the other Spider-Man now leering over him with one hand pressed to his sternum while he raised the other; ready to inject him with whatever was inside them.  
  
“Dude! Why are you trying to kill me if I’m you?”  
  
“You are _not_ me. If you _were_ me, you wouldn’t be so easy to take down.”  
  
“I don’t understand,” Peter wheezed.  
  
“That makes both of us.”  
  
And then his hand came down and Peter braced himself, but instead of striking him; he felt something worse— he felt his mask being savagely ripped away from him, pulling out some of his hair inside of it as cool air and rain water met his now exposed face. It was like one of his many worst nightmares come true.  
  
Peter stared up at the other Spider’s metallic blue mask, his breath coming out in heavy pants as the pressure on his chest increased.  
  
After a beat of silence, however, the other “Peter” spoke again.  
  
“How old are you?”  
  
“Um, 16,” Peter replied with some confusion and a rising sense of panic. He felt like he was beginning to forget how to _breathe_. None of this was right.  
  
“Interesting.”  
  
And then the last thing he saw was a fist rising again and burst of pain that quickly met darkness.

* * *

  
" _Boss, Peter's suit has gone offline,_ " FRIDAY alerted and Tony couldn't help but blink in surprise.

  
He let out a deep sigh, rising from the couch he’d only _just_ sat down on moments earlier.  
  
_So much for trying to take it easy._  
  
“Okay, FRI, show me what you got.”  
  
After navigating through a mess of readings and frazzled footage that seemed to fade out completely as he watched Peter launch himself towards a rooftop, Tony decided pretty quickly that none of it looked good— already blasting off from the compound as he continued trying to assess further data inflight.  
  
By the time he was flying over Queens and touching down on the very rooftop he’d watched Peter land on, he’d still found nothing, which didn’t do anything to help the rising sense of anxiety he felt coursing through his chest. Peter had more than proven than he could mostly handle himself in a variety of bizarre and highly dangerous situations, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped _worrying_.  
  
But the rooftop was empty, as was the alley below, though his sensors began picking up recent impact marks in the alley. Chipped gravel from something very strong striking against it and Tony knit his brows while examining it briefly, his mind going to great creative lengths to imagine what had done that. But, much to his frustration, he came up empty.  
  
"Okay, time for something more thorough," he muttered to himself.  
  
He really hoped that whatever predicament Peter was in could wait just a little longer.  


* * *

  
Peter stared at himself dangling from the concrete ceiling of an old abandoned construction site, the teen’s body wrapped in a bundle of thick steel chains. They wouldn’t hold him for long on account of his strength, he knew that much, but he’d given himself a little longer by dislocating both of the other Spider-Man’s shoulders and giving a few good sharp kicks to his sides while he was still unconscious so that when he _did_ awaken— it’d take a lot longer for him to try and make a break for it.  
  
He almost felt a little bad about it.  
  
Almost.  
  
And as if right on cue, the other younger Peter Parker began stirring, low groans emitting from his swollen bloody lips that had likely already begun healing.  
  
“Shi…t,” he mumbled, one eye opening a crack before widening— his other one currently crusted shut from dried blood.  
  
The older, stronger Peter stood near the shattered concrete precipice under the other Peter’s head that went down many levels into a pile of concrete chunks and twisted rebar. Not an ideal place to fall. He held the once familiar suit in his hands, his fingers pulling at the stretchy fabric as a wire extended from it to a point below his wrist on his own suit as his A.I. worked to clear some of the memory banks.  
  
“Wh-why d’you have my suit—”  
  
“I had to disable the A.I. and tracking on it, of course. There was a little resistance from it when meeting my own suit’s A.I. but I think they managed to figure it out. Sorry to leave you in your underwear, though.”  
  
Peter watched himself groan and attempt to wriggle against the chains before gasping out in pain when he likely began realizing the extent of his own injuries, not to mention the drop below that would likely impale him if he did manage to break free.  
  
“So, tell me, _Peter_ , what’s your life like? Since I’m obviously here against my will, I figure I might as well learn a thing or two.”  
  
“It— it was goin’ pretty good actually, until _you_ showed up.”  
  
Peter snorted at him, the _other_ him.  
  
“I wish I could say the same. With or without you I’d be in trouble it seems, or maybe not. Who knows? Gosh, this whole thing is giving me _so_ , so many ideas. So just, come on, _tell_ me everything, and I’m not a complete dick, I’ll share, too.”  
  
“I dunno what it is you think you can get out of me,” the other Peter said, both of his eyes closing in brief defeat.  
  
“Who do you live with?”  
  
“I’m... definitely not tellin’ _you_ that.”  
  
“You still live with Aunt May?”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Yeah, I’m going to take that as a _yes_. I wonder if here— if it’s the same apartment. Is it? Is Mrs. Davalos your landlord? Oh, it is, okay cool. Man, you’re too easy to read, you know that? But then again, I guess I can’t blame you. And Mr. Stark, what’s going on with him? What’s he like? I’m guessing I haven’t gone back in time necessarily, at least not in _my_ timeline, otherwise I’d remember this, I think?”  
  
The other Peter’s eye had opened again and was watching him strangely, lips held tight in a firm grim line.  
  
“Come on, _Petey_ , give me something to work with. No? _Nothing_?”  
  
“Stay away from Aunt May,” the other Peter muttered, his voice incredibly low and dangerous for once.  
  
“Okay, since _you’re_ not going to help me out, _I’m_ going to have to figure things out on my own, especially since my suit is basically running in factory mode and clinging to a sliver of WiFi from the McDonalds around the corner. You— damn, what am I going to do with you? Okay, okay, I got it—”  
  
“W-whatever you’re thinking about— just _don’t_ , okay? What do you wanna know, huh? I’ll tell you stuff, but just stay away—”  
  
“From Aunt May? _Ha_ , you missed your chance, sorry. But chill out, stay cool. I’m not gonna like, off you or her, or whatever,” he told him with a smile. “I bet that’s what you’re thinking, but I won’t, I promise. This could be really interesting, yeah, yeah, definitely interesting. I can— I could do this.”  
  
_Always on your feet, Parker._  
  
That’s what the Widow had taught him, and that wasn’t a lesson he was going to forget.  
  
“No!”  
  
Peter shot out glob of webbing over the other Peter’s mouth, effectively silencing him as he tried to scream at him, much to his own amusement.  
  
“You just hang tight, okay? Stay here, stay right where you are and I’ll be back.”  
  
He retracted his own suit into the venom bracers he wore around his wrists before unclasping both of them, leaving him in his own boxers while the other Peter watched on in horror as he then proceeded to don the other red Spider suit— its A.I. engaging with a little garbled lag.  
  
_“H-Hello, Peter,”_ a woman’s voice filled the mask.  
  
“Hey… you,” said Peter.  
  
_“You seem a little different, physically, I mean. Are you feeling okay?”_  
  
“You’re very friendly,” snorted Peter, ignoring the muffled cries behind him just as he leapt from one of the windowless openings and out in to the street below.  
  
_“You’ve also disabled tracking functions which is a big no-no if memory serves correctly,”_ the A.I. chided him. _“Mr. Stark will not be pleased with that.”_  
  
“Oh, you’re right, that’s so weird, sorry. Something must have messed with your systems, I’ll fix that as soon as I get uh, home.”  
  
_“Are you sure you’re feeling alright, Peter? You seem a little different.”  
  
_"Don't worry, you just experienced a little short-circuit, that's why things might be reading a little off," he said simply, as if trying to reassure the A.I.  
  
Not having to travel too far, Peter landed on the rooftop of the apartment he’d once called home, a place that seemed like a lifetime ago, even the familiar smells of people cooking from the different windows being the same as he’d remembered, as well as the many scents of other people’s laundry and even the dumpster below combining with it. It all mingled together in a sensory cloud that made his stomach churn unpleasantly.  
  
“I’m going to take a guess that it’s still the same…” he muttered to himself.  
  
_“What’s that, Peter?”_  
  
“Never mind,” he told his suit, crawling into the window of his… _his_ bedroom.  
  
It was almost the same in every way, except there were a few things out of place, namely some of the posters were now different. He squinted at an Iron Man poster that was pinned to the wall that he’d never had, nor even had seen before.  
  
That was _something_ , Peter decided as he shut the window behind him.  
  
“Peter! Is that you?”  
  
Peter’s heart stalled, and he felt the blood drain from his face as he heard her voice call through from the door, quickly throwing his bracers underneath the bed and pulling off his mask as he ran to lock the door.  
  
Logically he’d guessed she’d be there, but that hadn’t meant he was ready to hear her voice yet. He began breathing heavily, suddenly feeling a lot less composed than before.  
  
“Yeah, it’s me,” he called out as naturally as he could, cracking his voice a little to hopefully sound younger.  
  
The doorknob began to jiggle a little and Peter blinked.  
  
“Uh, hold on, I’m… changing.”  
  
“Okay, well, you do realize it’s way past your curfew, right? And do you remember what I said about doing that?”  
  
“Sorry,” said Peter, hastily removing the red suit. “I got caught up… in something.”  
  
“Are you okay? Your voice sounds a little hoarse.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”  
  
Peter listened as she sighed heavily from the other side of the door.  
  
“Okay, Peter. Just get to bed, I have an early shift tomorrow which I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to stay awake for, but we’ll talk about this in the evening, okay?” Aunt May told him in a strained voice, but not unkindly.  
  
_Shift? Aunt May was still working? She sounds so… okay._  
  
Flashes of _his_ Aunt May crossed his mind and he closed his eyes, willing himself not to think of her.  
  
_Don’t get distracted._  
  
“Okay,” he said softly, resting his head against the door. He wanted to step out and look at her, but as quickly as the desire came, he shut it down. “Goodnight, Aunt May.”  
  
“G’night, Peter,” she said with a yawn, her voice drifting further away as she left his door and he listened as she went into her own room down the hall.  
  
Peter let out a breath, his stiff shoulders relaxing as he looked around the room again, his attention blissfully distracted before he caught sight of the laptop on his desk.  
  
 _Ah, the ultimate source of information._  
  
“Let’s see what else we can find out,” he muttered to himself as he took a seat and flipped open the laptop.


	4. Chapter 4

Peter couldn’t have slept even if he wanted to.  
  
It was past 4 am by the time he glanced up from his strenuous ‘research’ and decided it was time to close the search engine.  
  
_A person could learn a lot in a few hours_ , he thought as he mulled over everything he’d found out. A lot of things were certainly _different_ than what he knew, or _thought_ he knew, and what that actually meant for _him_ — well, he wasn’t sure.  
  
Peter sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. He knew he couldn’t leave his counterpart where he was for much longer, at least not in the state he’d left him in. Leaving the other Peter to suffer much more than necessary wasn’t really beneficial for anyone after all and he wasn't a complete masochist.  
  
And so, with all the knowledge one could acquire from the internet— Peter went back into action, namely turning the trackers back on in the suit and communications. That spurred something to life in a closed drawer of the desk and Peter opened it, revealing a glowing cell phone. He instantly picked it up and skimmed through it, mildly troubled by the blast from the past he experienced when he saw that _this_ Peter still had all of his friends. He'd had them, too, but he hadn’t spoken to any of them in years, but there they were again, reminding him of what he once had in the form of multiple text messages unread.  
  
Peter flinched when another string of notifications arose reading Mr. Stark's name with all missed calls. Blearily he became aware that his hand was shaking and he didn't know _why_. He'd been better than this. He’d _been_ better than this for a long time. And yet he almost dropped the phone when a face appeared of Mr. Stark, and Peter realized that the man was calling _him_. He knew he’d have to face him at some point, judging by what he’d found out, but that didn’t mean he’d been ready.  
  
Peter sniffed, taking a gulp before clearing his throat and answering the phone as softly as he can.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
Peter hears a distinctly familiar soft huff of annoyance on the other end of the line before the other man finally says something.  
  
_“Do I even need to say anything at this point, Peter? Because I could think of a lot of things— but I'll start with something simple: **what is going on**? Why was your suit’s tracking turned off mysteriously and why now has it just now been turned on? I thought we were beyond this sort of thing. Was I wrong? But I'm gonna let you talk, because communication is key, something I'd assumed we'd already communicated with each other. Okay, I'm going to let you talk now, so spill it, kid, or do I need to bring your Aunt into this, and we can all have an unpleasant grownup chat in the living room because I’m right above your building right now and my schedule has been cleared up for the next 24 hours. So, come on, lay it on me,"  
_Mr. Stark rambled and Peter wondered how he'd managed to say all of that without taking a breath, and if he strained his ears a little he could definitely hear the distant whir of the Iron Man suit.  
  
He never thought he'd hear that noise again...  
  
“S-sorry, Mr. Stark, there was a malfunction…”  
  
A pause.  
  
_“Come again?”_  
  
“There was some kind of, uh, anomaly. You see, I went to go check it out and some weird… stuff happened that put the suit and everything around it on the fritz.”  
  
_“Uh huh. Okay, and did this anomaly, as you called it, did it follow you around all of Queen’s and that’s why I couldn’t catch a single visual of you on any surveillance system? You can be pretty quick, I’ll give you that much, but this is something else—”_  
  
“Yeah, _yeah_ , it was really weird. I promise it won’t happen again,” Peter interrupted, clearing his throat again. “Well, I can’t promise that since it was out of my control, but if it’s _in_ my control then I totally will not let that happen. Yep.”  
  
_“You’re hiding something. And why does your voice sound deeper? Did you pick up chain-smoking?”  
  
_Peter coughed a few times and quietly edged up to the apartment’s bedroom window to see if he could catch a glimpse of the other man. It’d felt so long since he’d seen Mr. Stark in that capacity, and despite all the research and YouTube videos he’d watched of this timeline, he still couldn’t believe that it could all be real.  
  
And even though things were obviously occurring much earlier, it didn’t change that there were still so many things drastically different. For one thing, when he was this Peter’s age he had already moved out of the apartment and Aunt May had released him into Tony Stark’s care _permanently_. He’d walked out and never looked back while he assumed his Aunt May had done the same. Of course, that wasn’t completely true, after all he had tried to keep tabs on her in the beginning, that is until he’d been found out and then he’d been _taught_ that holding onto that life would only be a weakness, or rather _— a distraction.  
  
You're deviating again, Peter.  
_  
“Allergies,” Peter finally stated lamely. He didn’t really care how unbelievable it sounded since he had no plans of sticking around.  
  
_“Whatever, kid. Don’t think we’re done here. Expect Happy to pick you up after school today. You’re lucky I’m actually free this week. Otherwise I’d have been ten times more pissed. See ya.”_  
  
The call disconnected and with that Peter noted the sound of blasting repulsors fading overhead.  
  
He pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced.  
  
_I guess I need to go pay_ **myself** a visit.

* * *

 _  
_ Peter was sure he was going to die. That was the only thing he could imagine happening next. He’d die chained up in an abandoned construction site in his underwear and that would be the end of the real Spider-Man.  
  
Everything hurt.  
  
After managing to dislodge some of the webbing on his mouth, which unfortunately still clung to the side of his lips that stung, he’d thrown up everything that’d been left in his stomach to the shattered concrete depths below as he struggled to breathe. The hanging upside down part, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t have bothered him at all, made all of it ten times worse.  
  
He'd lost feeling in his hands and fingers, too, though his shoulders and arms burned in pain every time he tried to move. He had already felt things healing wrong in his body and if he survived any of this, he knew he had even more pain to go through if he had the chance to fix whatever damage had been done. Yeah, this really sucked even after everything he'd been through.  
  
But really none of that compared to the crippling fear that someone else, someone that even _looked_ like him, had taken his suit and knew where he lived— _knew_ where his Aunt May lived and he could do nothing but hang there and wait like an idiot. And he knew it’d been hours, _too long_ , as he watched the nighttime fade into an orange glow that preceded the sun rise and the start of a new day already.  
  
_No, no, no…_  
  
_But they would all know it wasn’t you_ , his mind told him.  
  
Aunt May would know, Ned, MJ, even Mr. Stark would know that something wasn’t right. And they’d find him.  
  
They would.  
  
They had to.  
  
Then he heard a familiar _thwip_ sound and a whoosh followed by a red figure flying in through the open glassless window, watching as the one whom he assumed to be _other_ Peter landed inside while wearing _his_ suit and Peter’s mind reeled at how similar even his body looked in it. Then the mask was pulled away and there he saw _his_ face.  
  
He had a dark bag, _his_ bag, slung over his shoulder, too, and Peter bristled at the idea that his things had likely been gone through by this... stranger.  
  
“Wow, I’d figured you’d look like shit after everything, sorry about that by the way, but _damn_. You do look awful,” he told him with a slight chuckle.  
  
Peter said nothing to that, though, as every ounce of humor had faded out of him when he’d thrown up and he wasn’t in any mood to talk to _him_ — the _imposter_ , or whatever he was.  
  
He did his best to glare back at him, unable to pull it off completely without wincing.  
  
“Okay,” the other Peter said, clapping his hands together. “We have a small problem.”  
  
Peter still refused to respond, but he was very much paying attention.  
  
“It seems like I have school today, which is _weird_ , and it seems like I have to have a visit with Mr. Stark. But I realize I can’t leave you like this, it’s just not that practical. However, I still need to be assured you won’t be making any miraculous appearances while I’m trying to figure out what’s going on, and I think Mr. Stark is probably the only person who can help with that. But then there’s more snags in that, too. But I'll figure that out. So, here’s what I’m going to do with you…”  
  
“I’m— I’m n-not helpin’ you with anythin’”  
  
“Oh, no, Pete, this is where you shut up, okay? Buddy. Pal. You just keep it shut until I’m done.”  
  
“Don’t… _hurt_ anyone.”  
  
The other Peter dipped his chin into his chest, looking up at him from narrowed brown eyes that held such little warmth that it made his stomach feel like it was on ice. He was smirking at him, a kind of terrible, _knowing_ smirk that had absolutely nothing good to offer.  
  
“I’m going to move you, and you’re not going to question where, and before you think you can develop any grand ideas of escaping or warning anyone, just think about Aunt May, okay? Think about her and how she is in my line of sight and how very easily I can—”  
  
“No! What— what is wrong with you? I dunno why… why you’re even here, but don’t **you** have an Aunt May, too? What’s wrong with you? Don’t even _think_ —”  
  
“Okay, that’s good. You care. I like to see that. I like to see when people care, it gives me something to work with. You be good and May will be good. Everything will be taken care of, okay? And once I figure all of this shit out, once I get my foot in the door with Mr. Stark, then I’ll be out of your hair. Yeah? No one has to get hurt, Petey.”  
  
Peter groaned, fighting the sting of tears in the corners of his eyes, angry with **everything**. Angry at himself, angry at the situation he’d landed in, and so angry at this… _duplicate_ who was now using everything precious against him.  
  
The other Peter then pulled him forward, away from the edge as he gripped his body against his own and pulled him before lowering his head down, his body stilling when he heard the chain being broken at his feet before being dragged flat on his back as he dropped.  
  
His vision was blurring and his head felt like it’d been crushed in a vice and he coughed, managing to spit some bile on the side as his entire body screamed in pain. A gloved hand slapped at his cheeks and his vision seemed to clear momentarily before something dark was wrapped around his eyes and he was once more lifted up.  
  
“You can take a nap now if you want,” breathed the other Peter, his words sounding a little mocking.  
  
He tried to yell, to shout out something, but all that came out was a strangled cry, feeling utterly helpless as he was carried.  
  
_Aunt May… please be okay_ , was all he could think as he felt himself slip away into not-so blissful unconsciousness once more.

* * *

  
Tony Stark liked to think he did his best when it came to keeping an eye on Spider-Boy. It was a kind of relationship he never, ever, in a million years imagined himself getting involved in, but somehow, it’d had all happened and he went with it. He did his best, he really did.

So, Tony Stark watched the monitor, his tired eyes squinting as he watched the too limited footage from the night before and next round of different footage that showed Peter passing a traffic light to catch the bus that very morning on his way to school.

Nothing else seemed to be amiss except everything still felt wrong. The area he’d searched had given him the creeps and yet he’d gotten nothing until FRIDAY had alerted him that the suit was suddenly back online as if nothing had happened, but with no prior or further footage to be accounted for.

Peter had called it an ‘anomaly’ and that really, really hadn’t sat right with him. Not by a long shot. Yet he had the rest of the day to wait and interrogate Peter further after he got off school, but first made a call to awaken a less than pleased Happy with the request that he’d need to extract the teen arachnid and bring him over to the compound _today_.

 _“What’s he done now?”_ Happy asked him.  
  
“Suit went offline last night while he was in it,” said Tony who gave no visible reaction to Happy’s mumbled curses over the video chat.  
  
_“Okay, anything else?”_  
  
“Mind picking up my dry cleaning?”  
  
_“Dry cleaning? Since when do you need dry cleaning?”_  
  
“It’s a special suit,” replied Tony as if were pretty obvious. Pepper had picked that suit out for him.  
  
_“Fine, whatever. See you in the afternoon.”_  
  
And with that, Tony waited.

* * *

  
Peter felt like he’d fallen back in time as he watched Ned jog to catch up with him outside his locker, but there was already something noticeably different about his old best friend. For one thing he seemed more _sprightly_ and _jovial_ than the Ned he knew.  
  
“Peter! Peter! Guess what!”  
  
Peter faced him, slouching his back a little more as he did.  
  
“Hey, what happened to you?” Ned immediately asked, his face knitting in confusion.  
  
“Um, what do you mean?”  
  
“I don’t know, you look kind of different somehow... like, you got older or something. Did you get a _growth spurt_?”  
  
Peter made a face, clasping Ned’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze before pulling on his backpack strap and walking. “You’re funny.”  
  
That seemed to make Ned appear further confused as he followed beside him, his eyebrows knit together as he watched him with a look like he wasn’t done asking questions.  
  
“Is this like... a _spider_ thing?” Ned whispered and Peter stopped dead in his tracks as another kid walking behind him knocked into his shoulder.  
  
_So, this Ned knew his secret. That was **very** different._  
  
“Yeah,” said Peter. “Yeah, man. It happens.”  
  
“What... happens?” Ned asked suspiciously.  
  
“Y’know,” said Peter making some vague gestures with his hands.  
  
“Right...”  
  
Peter smiled.  
  
Yeah, he could wing this.


	5. Chapter 5

Peter could not wing this.  
  
“Dude, how did you forget about the homework?”  
  
“It must have slipped my mind, I guess,” Peter muttered impatiently as he waited outside the school building.  
  
Ned still hadn’t lost his squinty, dubious expression for the whole part of the school day which had amused Peter for some time until he started to feel antsy as the hours wore on, relishing in any excuse to step aside for a bit and catch a breather as if it was really him that was still a student there.  
  
“Right,” was all Ned said, still staring at him. “So, uh, who’s your favorite Jedi?”  
  
Peter blinked at him.  
  
“What?”  
  
Ned’s eyes seemed to widen a little before he took a few shaky steps backwards, knocking his backpack into another student passing by them.  
  
“Is something wrong?” Peter asked him, raising a brow.  
  
“Nothing,” Ned practically squeaked. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”  
  
“’Kay,” said Peter quietly, watching as Ned seemed to turn tail and run away from him. He would have questioned it more if he hadn’t felt a slight tingling in his neck before a clipped honk caught his attention and he turned to see Happy himself driving a sleek black sedan.  
  
Peter gulped, something twitching in his lip that he’d hope would come off as a casual smile and not at all alluding to the nerves that had started coursing through him against his will.  
  
_Maybe **guilt** is the thing you’re feeling after threatening to hurt another Peter Parker’s last surviving family member after stashing him in an underground passage with only a jug of water and a lousy bag of Frito’s to sustain him…  
  
_Peter was a lot of things, namely a piece of shit and not on the lightest shade of the moral palette, but he didn’t go out of his way to hurt innocent people. Unless it was for the greater good, of course. So, it wasn’t so strange to feel bad about all of it, even if his better judgement told that it would impede his mission of getting back home.  
  
“What are you waiting for, kid? Get in.”  
  
Peter didn’t hesitate to hop into the car, though he must have made some sort of error because Happy was staring at him like he’d grown an extra head as he sat in the front next to the other man.  
  
“Is there a problem?” Peter inquired rather placidly.  
  
“Nope, I guess not,” Happy muttered, turning the steering wheel and pulling out into the main street to inch his way into a row of cars briefly stalled by traffic.  
  
Peter decided he really didn’t have time to second-guess every single action he’d take while living as the _other_ Peter, he had no intentions of sticking around after all, but that didn’t make the unsettled feeling of not belonging ebb any further. But he could do this, he could hang in there.  
  
_Yep, yep, yep, none of this is unsettling as shit…  
  
_He decided to say very little for the entirety of the journey despite the fact that he continuously felt Happy giving him side-glances every five to ten minutes which he pointedly tried to ignore. It was harder than he would have liked to admit.  
  
“So,” Happy began a little awkwardly as he took an exit on the freeway. “You uh, doing anything… different?”  
  
“New protein shake,” Peter muttered, leaning his head against the door window in an attempt to appear nonchalant.  
  
“Uh huh.”  
  
“What about you? Counting calories yet? I figure that’s what dudes your age are doing.”  
  
Happy shifted a little uneasily in his seat while tugging on his seatbelt, his mouth forming a grim line, but he said nothing in response to Peter who merely shrugged it off and gladly continued to stare out of the window at the passing scenery.  
  
_So the compound was still in the same location. That’s a bonus.  
  
_Peter had absolutely no complaints when Happy didn’t seem to want to further the conversation, perking up in his seat as the pulled into the long driveway and past security clearances into the Avenger’s compound. Everything looked exactly as he knew it and realized that for the time-being, that is if Mr. Stark didn’t already suspect something was off, he’d need to act the part perfectly of his counterpart’s dimwit personality until he could gain access into Stark’s A.I. directly.  
  
The car had only just went into a complete stop before Peter bolted from the car and walked straight into the compound’s doors, nervously eyeing the entrance and quickly ascertaining any differences or notable threats. He sincerely hoped Natasha wasn’t there, either, because he knew if there was anyone who could immediately sniff out his ruse than it’d be her and he’d be in big trouble.  
  
_Unless she’s different, too._  
  
“Peter,” Mr. Stark greeted, appearing from an elevator that had just then opened, his arms initially crossed over his chest until he stepped out and placed his hands on his hips, staring directly at him.  
  
Peter fell silent, his heartbeat beginning to race and he suddenly felt small, smaller than he had in a long time and it was exactly like when he met his mentor for the first time. Again.  
  
This was the Tony he had first met. Whole. Standing. Confident, at least by all outward appearances. This Tony was everything Peter had pledged his loyalty to, not yet the man whom he would later grow to bitterly resent and both parts equally need as much as he hated to admit it. He was nothing without Tony Stark.  
  
The silence must have stretched on too long because Mr. Stark’s eyebrow rose and he stepped closer, looking Peter up and down much to his discomfort.  
  
“Huh,” said Mr. Stark. “Let’s head into the lab.”  
  
Peter nodded and felt a breeze as the door swooshed open, aware of Happy coming up behind him, though he did not look back at him; his eyes now fixed on the billionaire’s back as he followed him into the elevator.  
  
“You’re awfully quiet,” he told Peter after the doors slid shut the moment Happy cut in to stand with them as they went up.  
  
“Uh, sorry?”  
  
Mr. Stark sniffed and looked away from him while Happy had fixed his gaze in a corner. Peter picked at his collar, feeling a little hot and sweaty suddenly.  
  
_Christ, pull it together._  
  
The elevator stopped and Happy got off, giving both of them a half salute, leaving Peter alone with Mr. Stark.  
  
“So, are you going to give me a rundown of what the hell is going on?”  
  
Peter licked his lips before speaking, “I know it seems like I’m hiding something, but I swear to you that it’s exactly as I said it was over the phone. There was this weird glow, and something happened, all the lights went out and I think it messed with the suit’s system, but it seems fine now, really, Mr. Stark—”  
  
“It’s fine. I’m sure we can figure it out.”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
Mr. Stark stepped out of the elevator first and Peter followed cautiously behind him, eyes once again scanning around for any notable details. It was certainly less cluttered for one thing, Peter noted.  
  
“Alright, bring it here.”  
  
Peter carefully unzipped his backpack, rummaging past some notebooks to pull out the suit which he handed over, not quite sure what to expect. His tech was way more advanced, so he felt that he shouldn’t be too worried, but that didn’t halt the slight tension he felt as he watched Mr. Stark walking away with the suit and laying it out on a vacant work table before initiating a wide pull-up of screens with the suit’s stats and records.  
  
“So, you saw some glowy thing, you jumped in on it, then what?”  
  
“Just like I said, I know that’s not—”  
  
“I’ll decide what it is.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“FRIDAY,” started Mr. Stark. “Scan Mr. Parker here. Vitals, everything, especially note anything _different_ since he was here last.”  
  
_Damnit._  
  
“Uh, what are you doing? Is that necessary?”  
  
_“There are some notable changes in Peter Parker’s growth and strength. He has grown 5.08 centimeters and his metabolic rate has slightly increased. His vitals are steady, though there is a slight increase in heart rate that I suspect has to do with nerv_ _—”_  
  
“Okay, y’know, granted I will say that is a little weird,” Peter interrupted. “Maybe something happened, and I grew an inch somehow, I’m still me.”  
  
Mr. Stark was studying him, arms once again crossed over his chest as he looked at Peter. Like Ned, he too looked like he was trying to figure something out but couldn’t quite place it.  
  
Peter’s fingers twitched, and he envisioned what would happen if he knocked the older man down. He would have very little time to try and hack into the A.I without setting off some kind of protective alert, but he was only assuming that there would be one. How much did this Tony Stark trust in his tech and own self-security? How quickly could he stop him from deploying an Iron Man suit or any other spares?  
  
Peter wasn’t an idiot.  
  
“You hungry?” Mr. Stark asked him, suddenly distracting him from his thoughts.  
  
Peter blinked.  
  
“Um, yes.”  
  
“Pizza? Yes? I’m going to take that as a yes. Got that FRI? We need six boxes of pizza delivered.”  
  
_“On it, Boss.”_  
  
Peter’s shoulders sagged in slight relief.  


* * *

  
Apparently it was _thing_ for Peter Parker to stay the night in the compound on the occasional weekend, which was perfectly fine with him.  
  
He was getting so accustomed to living as the other Peter while playing around with some of gadgets his counterpart had supposedly been working on that it didn’t even phase him when his voice rang for the fourth or fifth time, that is until Mr. Stark finally said something.  
  
“Are you going to answer that?”  
  
“Oh, yeah, totally,” Peter said not so enthusiastically, patting around his pocket and retrieving the still buzzing device.  
  
Aunt May.  
  
He still hadn’t technically seen in her person, only speaking to her through the thin door between them, but he figured if he managed to get through an afternoon and evening with Mr. Stark without flipping out or reverting to old habits like verbally sparring with him, then he could speak to this _different_ Aunt May.  
  
“Hello.”  
  
_“Peter. Did you forget something?”_  
  
“No…?”  
  
_“We were supposed to have a talk about breaking curfew last night. Where are you?”  
  
_Peter fiddled with the screwdriver with his freehand, twirling it on the work table absently as he glanced over at Mr. Stark still running another round of diagnostics on the suit.  
  
_“Peter,”_ he heard her sigh. _“Remember when we talked about this already? How many more of these talks do we need to have?”  
  
_“Sorry,” said Peter automatically, feeling uncomfortable.  
  
_“Where are you now?”_  
  
“Uh…”  
  
_“Are you with Mr. Stark at the compound?”_  
  
“Yes,” said Peter, wondering how much this Aunt May knew. _Did everyone in this kid’s life know what he was doing?_  
  
_“Fine, but don’t think I’m letting this go. You also forgot to feed Mrs. Mendoza’s cat and he was practically scratching through the walls with hunger. Not very responsible, Peter.”_  
  
“Right, sorry. I dunno where my head’s been,” said Peter.  
  
_“It’s fine. Our talk is now on hold, but it’s not over with, okay? Am I clear?”_  
  
“Crystal.”  
  
A brief pause elapsed and before he could think to say anything else, he hit end on the phone, dropping it on the table next to an empty box of pizza like it was something unclean.  
  
“Everything okay?” Mr. Stark asked him, not looking up from some wiring in the suit he was examining.  
  
Why did he care?  
  
“Yeah, it’s fine.”  
  
Mr. Stark glanced at him, looking like he meant to say something but thought better of it. Peter was glad that he hadn't.  


* * *

  
It was past midnight by the time Peter was shooed out of the lab and sent up to the guest quarters which he’d pretended to know where they were. He got into the elevator, clearing his throat before speaking to the built-in A.I.  
  
“Take me to the room where I usually sleep,” said Peter with a little strain in his voice.  
  
_“Very well, Mr. Parker.”  
  
_In his time in the lab he’d learned little to nothing, except that his counterpart built rather useless contraptions that were meant to be upgrades. He’d done the other Peter a favor by scraping half of them.  
  
He needed to be gone from this timeline, and yet there was nothing he could pull up that wouldn’t seem suspicious then, and he hoped he’d have more luck in the room where he could hopefully hack into the system without Mr. Stark right there.  
  
The room was immaculate, not that he expected anything different. The décor was slightly off than what he remembered of Stark’s guest rooms, but he supposed that wasn’t too strange all things considering.  
  
“Okay, FRIDAY?”  
  
_“Yes, Mr. Parker. What can I help you with?”  
_  
“Initiate Override Protocol: Alpha, G, 30, Zed, 40, 42, Howard One.”  
  
_“I do not think you are authorized_ _—”  
  
_“Initiate Master Secret Mode: 1970MSQ.”  
  
_“Activated.”_  
  
“Good. Okay, FRIDAY, do not let anyone know what I am accessing from this room, not even Mr. Stark.”  
  
_“Very well, sir.”_  
  
Finally, progress.  


* * *

_  
_ Nothing. He’d found nothing.  
  
There were no records of any of the projects attached to the power source he’d been tasked with extracting from Hammer and Peter was beginning to suspect that there may have been a good chance that it just didn’t exist in this timeline, and if it did then he had no earthly idea where to even begin looking for it.  
  
He’d thought about seeking out Hammer, only to discover the man was locked away in prison and had been for some time with little to nothing else happening with him, save for an incident where he was almost shanked by his bunkmate.  
  
None of it was of any use and everything else remotely close to that, was entirely out of reach (like Asgard), or completely lost.  
  
Peter threw a lamp from the end table, only marginally satisfied when it shattered against the wall. _Shit._  
  
_Perhaps Doctor Strange_ , he thought with some frustration.  
  
But no.  
  
He couldn’t stand the guy, and Peter actively avoided him when he could due to his mean streak that once cost another Avenger being thrown into an endless loop for six months when he merely glanced at the sorcerer wrong, _or maybe the story was a little more complicated than that_ , but Peter wasn’t interested in testing out how different the man was here just yet.  
  
But what choice did he really have?  
  
“FRIDAY, de-activate all protocols I’ve engaged while in this session. Wipe memory banks from when I first entered the room, and if anyone asks; I’ve been asleep.” _  
  
_“Understood, Mr. Parker.”  
  
__Peter sighed, flopping down on a bed for the first time in what had been over 24 hours.  
  
He let himself sleep _ _.__  
  
  
  



End file.
